• This series of two sided works on paper is a collaboration with writer Sam Anderson. He responded to Melissa McGill’s public art project, Constellation, with typewritten quotes and original pieces. McGill marked the typewritten pages with graphite, pastel, watercolor, Sumi Ink, and charcoal. Then, punching out the periods, punctuation, pauses and/or spaces in the written works with a Japanese hole punch, she created new constellations, illuminated when light shines through the pages. All are 8″ w x 11″ h.

  • The following series of works on paper are one sided works on paper. Sam Anderson’s typewritten work is shown in the title beneath each image.

  • The ruin of Bannerman’s castle.
    Is like the shell of a crustacean.

    It changes color, depending.

    In the rain it looks red.

    Often it looks mud brown.

    2016, Pastel, graphite and charcoal on typewritten paper.

  • A rain dance.
    A void dance.

    No island research of any kind.
    No island of any kind.
    No island.
    No research.

    From now on I will only know what I know now.
    I know now:

    avoidance.
    managing intervals.
    not body.
    turtling.
    misdiagnosis.
    no island of any kind.
    west coast.
    east coast.
    “on top of things”
    ‘time is a caucasian thing’
    “human among humans”

    2016, Pastel, ink, graphite and charcoal on typewritten paper.

  • Major stars in the river Constellation (a rough map)

    Cursa, Keid, Beid, Zaurak, Rana, Azha, Angetenar, Thelmin, Acamar, Archernar
    (at the end of the rive: the 10th brightest star in the sky)
    (7 times the mass of the sun)

    2016, Pastel on typewritten paper

  • Eridanus (a-RID-a-nuss)
    The river constellation

    Eridanus Supervoid—
    The largest structure ever identified by humans is the Eridanus Supervoid: a space in which there should have been 10,000 galaxies but instead there was nothing. It is inexplicably cold, large & empty. It was discovered by people on the small warm island of Maui. “It’s like the Everest of voids. “ – The Cosmos News. “The super-void appears to be roughly spherical though it’s internal structure may be more complex, containing smaller voids & filaments. “- Sky Telescope. The supervoid is about 900 million light years across.

    ///Cosmic Microwave Background
    Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe
    Integrated Sachs-Wolfe Effect ///

    2016, Pastel, graphite, Sumi Ink, metal powder on typewritten paper

  • B. *M*

    Perhaps in an ambulance, certainly a vehicle of some kind. The truth is I don’t know how much, the within, all that inner space one never sees, the brain & heart & other caverns where thought & feeling dance their Sabbath. I crouched like Belaqua, or Sordello, I forget. But that ius not, I mean my hand, what I wish to speak ofnow, everything in due course. Constipation is a sign of good health in Pomeranians. Yes, it was an orange Pomeranian, the less I think of it the more certain I am. And yet. Let me try and explain. What I need now is stories, it took me a long time to know that, & I’m not sure of it. To restore silence is the role of objects. I am still alive then, that may come in useful. And I, what was I doing there, and why come? These are things we shall try and discover. But these are not things we must not take seriously.
    I can’t believe it.
    No, I will not lie. I can easily conceive it. Let me hear nothing of the moon, in my night there is no moon, and if it happens that I speak of the stars it is by mistake. A & C I never saw again. I know how to summon these rags to cover my shape. I wonder what that means. It was a chainless bicycle, with a free-wheel, if such a bicycle exists. Dear bicycle, I shall not call you a bike, you were green, like so many of your generation, I don’t know why. To describe it at length would be a pleasure. This should all be re-written in the pluperfect. What a rest to speak of bicycles and horns. Unfortunately, it is not of them I have to speak, but of her who brought e into the world, through the hole in her arse if my memory is correct. First taste of the shit, the awful cries of the corncrakes. We were so old, she and I, she had had me so young, that we were like a couple of old cronies, sexless, unrelated, with the same memories, the same rancours, the same expectations. She never called me son, fortunately, I couldn’t have borne it, but Dan. I don’t know why, my name is not Dan. I called her Mag because for me, without my knowing why, the letter g abolished the syllable Ma, and as it were spat on it, better than any other letter would have done, the Countess Caca, a few niggardly wetted goat-droppings every two or three days. The room smelt of ammonia, oh not merely of ammonia, but of ammonia, ammonia. I forgive her for having jostled me a little in the first months and spoiled the only endurable, just endurable, period of my enormous history, if ever I’m reduced to looking for a meaning for my life, you can never tell, it’s in that old mess I’ll stick my nose to begin with, the mess of that poor old uniparous whore and myself the last of my foul brood, neither man nor beast. I was out of sorts. They are deep, my sorts, a deep ditch, and I am not often out of them. That’s why I mention it. I managed somehow, Being ingenious. And suddenly I remembered my name . Molloy .
    They paid no attention to me and I repaid the compliment. Then how could I know they were paying no attention to me, and how could I repay the compliment, since they were paying no attention to me? I don’t know. I knew it and I did it, that’s all I know. These are all sentences I underlined in the first 23 pages of Samuel Beckett’s novel *Molloy*. SA

    2016, Sumi Ink and metal powder on typewritten paper with a second piece of paper mounted behind the top layer, coated with silver metal dust, which shines through the punched holes.

Projects

  • Call and Response

    It is a time of great change, and it is a time of listening deeply—to each other and to the sounds around us.  In our suddenly quieter world, the sound of the birds can now be heard more clearly.

    This online project invites you to stop and listen. Call and Response refers to the actual format of this project—my call and received responses from around the world—as well as themes of community, connection and conversation. 

     

  • Shape Shifting

    “Shape Shifting“, 2022

    This sculptural glass installation transmutes a series of two-dimensional, photographic surfaces into an immersive environment, where the subtle play of light and translucency recalls the changing yet constant nature of the tides.

  • 100 Breaths

    This series of 100 works on paper is titled 100 Breaths (2016), shown here in a recent exhibition at David Weeks Studio . The artist made each drawing with her breath, blowing metal dust suspended in varnish to create drawings that refer to both geography and the body. The gold, copper and silver forms are highly responsive to ambient light and change throughout the day, as the light changes in the room. They flare up and soften as the viewer moves and looks at them from different angles.

  • The Campi

    A sculptural sound project

    Exploring the conversation between the visible and the invisible that defines public space, The Campi invokes daily life in five campi, the open, irregularly shaped public squares that serve as the historic heart of every Venetian neighborhood.

     

  • Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant erased, replaced with blossoming cherry trees

    These digital renderings depict Melissa McGill’s proposal to erase the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant and replace it with cherry trees.

  • Palmas

    Palmas activated the Quarry Pool and encircling paths at Manitoga: The Russel Wright Design Center. It was a two part project : A surround sound installation and a live performance. The work takes its name from the improvised, rhythmic clapping that is an integral part – the heartbeat – of Flamenco. Palmas animated the site aurally, inviting a heightened sense of awareness of the site’s landscape.

  • Red Regatta

    Red Regatta was an independent public art project created by artist Melissa McGill that activated Venice’s lagoon and canals with four large-scale regattas of traditional vela al terzo sailboats hoisted with hand-painted red sails in 2019. Presented in collaboration with Associazione Vela al Terzo, curated by Chiara Spangaro, with project manager Marcella Ferrari, the project was co-organized by Magazzino Italian Art, with support from Mazzoleni.

  • Box of Waves

    The Box of Waves series transmits movements in time across different elements, expressing our ongoing dialogue with nature. To open the box is like opening a portal into a moment-in-process—one marked by the perpetual reciprocity of wind and water. Drawing us into water’s inclinations, we engage with them by way of sight, sound, reflections, and movement. Water is as much a vital substance as an expressive language—be this articulated through wind, waves, shifting light and shadow, or the flow of time itself.

  • Red Regatta: Riflessi

    Captured during Red Regatta’s performances in 2019 in Venice, these photographic works document the reflections of the red sails as they fleeted together across the Venetian lagoon. An immersive installation of these works was installed at Totah inviting viewers to be surrounded in Venice’s lagoon, bathing in the afterglow of the Red Regatta.

  • Between the Two

    This body of work explores mapping negative spaces and shadows in space with blown black glass and inky black rubber drawings.

  • Constellation

    Constellation was a large-scale sculptural project installed around the ruins of Bannerman’s Castle on Pollepel Island in the section of the Hudson River that passes through Hudson Highlands State Park. Every evening, as the sun went down, starry lights emerge one by one with the stars of the night sky, creating a new constellation and connecting past and present, light and dark, heaven and earth. Constellation references a belief of the Lenape, the indigenous people of this area, of Opi Temakan, the “White Road” or “Milky Way” connecting our world with the next. The project launched in late June, 2015 and was on view through October 2017.

  • These Waters

    These Waters  is an immersive sculptural installation created at the invitation of and with support from Vacheron Constantin. Composed of five large-scale photographs of New York’s Hudson River on glass, five panels lean against each other and the wall, appearing to be portals into the waters, their size and placement evoking the rise and fall of the tides.  

  • In the Waves

    In the Waves by artist Melissa McGill, curated by Dodie Kazanjian, was a series of live free public art performances activating the landscape and evoking the urgency of rising sea levels and a rapidly changing climate. The artist invited members of the local community to join the ensemble of this inclusive movement-based public artwork to create a shared meaningful experience about these environmental themes. The ensemble was led by the artist with Davalois Fearon, choreographer and Melanie George, producer and dramaturg.
    The project took place place on the ancestral lands of the Niantic Narragansett Nation at Rough Point in Newport, Rhode Island and was presented by Art&Newport and Newport Restoration Foundation.

     

  • Indigo Works

    Water’s gestures are expressed in this new series of natural organic indigo paintings, drawing us into water’s inclinations.